You’ve probably heard this expression before and it 150% applies to the real estate industry.

You’ll see things like this:

And sites that let you post for free.

The thing is…

Free does not always mean good.

Often times these marketing tactics are:

Using the content you create on their site to sell their services

Not directing the benefit back to you

Or, don’t have a big enough audience for you to see any benefit.

Rather than taking the “FREE” opportunity….

Here’s what I’d do:

Create The Free Marketing

Opportunity For Someone Else

What do you think would happen if…

You blogged about a the top 10 local restaurants?

What if you featured a story of someone who’s making something cool locally?

What if you featured an up-and-coming neighborhood or condo complex for a home builder?

I call this type of marketing…

The Flip-Flop

What’s a flip-flop?

It’s where you feature someone on your site without any expectation. And what generally happens is they share the day-lights out of it. And you get new people aware of your business.

The truth is, we can all easily go to Facebook or Google and find groups and other places offering free leads and referrals in our marketplace.

There is endless free stuff out there in real estate, but to put it simply you reap what you sow. If you decide to write a blog on a free site like ActiveRain you’re going to be posting for an audience of other agents. So you’ll be sharing information with a community of agents who are doing the same thing you are and this will add very little value to you or the folks you are looking to actually do real estate with.

To me, what’s much more interesting and has the potential to change your business is if you are the one who creates those free opportunities for other businesses and people to take advantage of.

Why not offer a free marketing opportunity to the local baker in your community on your blog?

You can create the free marketing activity and free exposure for people in your community.

How about that up-and-coming restaurant everyone is talking about?

Your efforts will help them get a free end result and when you give free help you’re going to be opening yourself up to all kinds of new contacts. People will find out about you who otherwise probably wouldn’t even know you exist. You’ll be sending brand new leads to your website and gaining a whole bunch of solid connections.

Imagine what could happen if you created a free video walk-through of a new multi-million dollar condo for that builder in your area who has sunk all their money into its development in hopes of it being successful.

You’d be providing all of the prospective residents with free value along with the builder. And what these means long-term is that down the road when the builder comes and does another million dollar property, who do you think they’re going to have at the top of their mind to work with?

Why Do This?

You’re building concrete relationships now instead of trying to cash in on free opportunities. And this is the way to get the best referrals and the most qualified leads to see you and want to conduct real estate with you.

Of course, there will always be exceptions to this. If Inman calls you up you should definitely go contribute there. You can put a guest blog spot like this on your resume and show it to your listing appointments, but here’s the kicker…

The bottom line here is that everything that is free in real estate is cheap. Those free Facebook referral groups are as cheap as it gets and you’re just taking, taking, taking while not really providing anything of value. Your neighbor isn’t going to refer you business just because you’re in a group like that.

Go out and create free opportunities for people in your community. Provide free value for them.